


First Use

by BlueNeutrino



Series: Taboo Tales [4]
Category: Taboo (TV 2017)
Genre: Death, Gen, Spiritual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 18:02:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17565329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueNeutrino/pseuds/BlueNeutrino
Summary: She comes to him in dreams. When the Man has gone, the scorching sun dipped below the savannah and the bars of the cage his only companion for the lonely night, she finds him.





	First Use

She comes to him in dreams. When the Man has gone, the scorching sun dipped below the savannah and the bars of the cage his only companion for the lonely night, she finds him. Like a piece of the night's sky given human form, her spirit touches him as moonlight on his skin. Her eyes: flint. Her hair: braided shadows adorned with beads of stars. She speaks to him in a tongue he does not know, yet nonetheless understands.

"Walk with me."

James leaves his body in the cage and follows her onto the plains.

"Who are you?"

"You know me, James Delaney."

The sound of his name makes him shudder in disgust. "I do not."

"But you do. Better than you've known any living soul. We kissed, in the water. You gave your last breath to me."

When he meets her eyes, they’re deep and dark like the depths of the ocean. He has to look away. "Why did you not keep it?"

"I took many souls that day. Yours, I gave to another."

They come to a stop outside the hut where the Man sleeps. A mesh curtain hangs across the entrance, stirring slightly with the warm breeze. 

"What will he do with it?"

"That is up to him." She reaches out with a slender hand to sweep back the veil. James steps inside.

The room beyond is dark and peaceful, and carries the lingering smell of a long-since extinguished fire and tanned animal hides. On a grass mat in the corner, beneath a blanket of fur and a window facing east, sleeps the Man.

"He's shown you a great kindness," says the woman from beside him.

James is standing next to the bed. He doesn't know when he crossed to it. "He's left me in a cage to starve and go mad under the sun. He's shown me great punishment."

"Is that not the greatest kindness you've known?"

James blinks. Long after he thought they'd all dried up, tears spring to his eyes. He wants to weep with the shame of it: the weight of a mercy he doesn't deserve.

"I...I want to go with you." His legs tremble and he falls to his knees. He no longer has the pride to keep from pleading: begs only for the end and a coward's release.

"That would be ungracious." He feels her shadow at his back, the coolness of her presence reflected in her words. "Every breath, every heartbeat he has granted you is a gift. Do not squander it."

James gazes at the Man's face, and the shudder of a shameful sob wracks through his body. He longs to understand. He cannot. " _Why?_ "

No answer will come to him that night.

The shadow passes. On the horizon, dawn begins to break.

James wakes to the kiss of sunlight on his scorched skin and the splash of water on parched lips. He opens his eyes, squinting up into the light before a shifting shade brings into focus a lined, weathered face and tightly curled black hair flecked with grey. Black eyes gaze down at him. They're the same eyes as hers.

Fingers tangle in his unkempt hair and James feels a tight grip on his jaw. His mouth opens, throat convulsing as he walks the line between to drink and to drown. The Man speaks, and James feels the rhythm of the words flow through him like a heartbeat. It's the same language she'd spoken to him before.

" _I have a use for you._ "


End file.
